America is living on borrowed time -- and squandering it. Three years after September 11, we are still dangerously unprepared to prevent or respond to anotherattack on American soil. Faced with this threat, the United States should be operating on a wartime footingat home. But despite the many new security precautionsthat have been proposed, our most serious vulnerabilities remain ominously exposed. In this powerful and urgently needed call to action, Stephen Flynn offers a startling portrait of the radical shortcomings in America's current plan for homeland security. He describes a frightening scenario of what the next major terrorist attack might look like, revealing the tragic loss of life and economic havoc it would leave in its wake, as well as the seismic political consequences it would have in Washington. Despite increased awareness, we still offer our enemies a vast menu of soft targets: water and food supplies; chemical plants; energy grids and pipelines; bridges, tunnels, and ports; and the millions of cargo containers that carry most of the goods we depend upon in our everyday lives. The measures we have cobbled together to protect these vital systems are hardly fit to deter amateur thieves, vandals, and smugglers, letalone determined terrorists. Worse still, small improvements are often oversold as giant steps forward, lowering the guard of the average citizen and building an unwarranted sense of confidence. It does not have to be this way. Flynn carefully outlines a bold yet practical plan for achieving security in a way that is safe and smart, effective and manageable. In a new world of heightened risk and fear, America the Vulnerable delivers a timely, forceful message that cannot be ignored.

Stepehn Flynn is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

PREFACE	ix
1 LIVING ON BORROWED TIME	1	(16)
2 THE NEXT ATTACK	17	(20)
3 THE PHONY WAR	37	(22)
4 SECURITY MATURITY	59	(22)
5 WHAT'S IN THE BOX?	81	(30)
6 PROTECT AND RESPOND	111	(24)
7 MOBILIZING THE HOME FRONT	135	(22)
8 FEAR, PARANOIA, AND THE GATHERING STORM	157	(14)
NOTES	171	(50)
INDEX	221

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

America the Vulnerable
How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism

Chapter One

Living on Borrowed Time

If September 11, 2001, was a wake-up call, clearlyAmerica has fallen back asleep. Our return to complacencycould not be more foolhardy. The 9/11 attacks were not an aberration. The same forces that helped to produce the horror thatbefell the nation on that day continue to gather strength. Yet weappear to be unwilling to do what must be done to make oursociety less of a target. Instead, we are sailing into a nationalsecurity version of the Perfect Storm.

Homeland security has entered our post–9/11 lexicon, buthomeland insecurity remains the abiding reality. With theexception of airports, much of what is critical to our way of liferemains unprotected. Despite all the rhetoric, after the initialflurry of activity to harden cockpit doors and confiscate nail clippers,there has been little appetite in Washington to movebeyond government reorganization and color-coded alerts. While we receive a steady diet of somber warnings about potentialterrorist attacks, the new federal outlays for homeland securityin the two years after 9/11 command an investment equal toonly 4 percent of the Pentagon's annual budget. Outside ofWashington, pink slips for police officers and firefighters aremore common than new public investments in security. Withstate and local budgets hemorrhaging red ink, mayors, countycommissioners, and governors are simply in no position to fillthe security void the federal government has been keen to thrustupon them. The private sector has shown its preference for takinga minimalist approach to new security responsibilities. Therehave been private-sector leaders who have been bucking thistrend, several of whom are featured in the pages ahead. But, byand large, trade and industry associations have been hard at worktrying to fend off new security requirements that might compelthem to address vulnerabilities and thereby raise their bottomlinecosts.

From water and food supplies; refineries, energy grids, andpipelines; bridges, tunnels, trains, trucks, and cargo containers;to the cyber backbone that underpins the information age inwhich we live, the measures we have been cobbling together arehardly fit to deter amateur thieves, vandals, and hackers, nevermind determined terrorists. Worse still, small improvements areoften oversold as giant steps forward, lowering the guard ofaverage citizens as they carry on their daily routine with anunwarranted sense of confidence.

Old habits die hard. The truth is America has been on ahundred-year joyride. Throughout the twentieth century wewere able to treat national security as essentially an out-of-bodyexperience. When confronted by threats, we dealt with them on the turf of our allies or our adversaries. Aside from the occasionaldisaster and heinous crime, civilian life at home has been virtuallyterror-free. Then, out of the blue, the 9/11 attacks turned ournational security world on its head. Al Qaeda exposed ourAchilles' heel. Paradoxically, the United States has no rivalwhen it comes to projecting its military, economic, and culturalpower around the world. But we are practically defenseless athome.

A number of post–Cold War realities have created a newglobal environment that places America in a position of especiallygrave danger. First, from nearly all points on the compass,there is rising anti-Americanism. To a large extent this is theinevitable byproduct of the United States' unique standing asthe sole remaining superpower. Our current predicament is thatany unhappy person on the planet is inclined to lay the blame onAmerica's doorstep. If they think their society is being underminedby cultural pollution, they are likely to see the UnitedStates as the lead polluter. If they view the economic rules of thegame as rigged to benefit the few at the cost of the many, theycastigate the United States as the capitalist kingmaker. And ifthey imagine life would be better if there were a change in thelocal political landscape, they see the United States as standingin the background, or foreground, as a barrier to their revisionistdreams. When our actions and policies display periodic arroganceand indifference, we only add grist to the anti-U.S. mill.

For the foreseeable future, increased anti-Americanism willbe a fact of life. Certainly it can be exacerbated or amelioratedby the approaches we take and the priority we assign to addressingsome of the world's most pressing public-policy challenges.There is too much pent-up rage and frustration around the world caused by overpopulation, limited education and job opportunities,and a lack of participation in the political process. As anation, we should be mindful of these sobering realities andwork to improve them wherever we can. But even the wisest,kindest, and gentlest American leadership will not appeasegroups like the remnants of the Taliban, whose beliefs are theantithesis of our own. There will be ample recruits to strike outat the United States as a means of defending or advancing theircauses.

This rise in discontent is made more menacing by another disturbingfact of twenty-first-century life: groups with no governmentalties can acquire the most lethal tools of warfare. Certainly,state sponsorship can be helpful. But with so many pockets of theworld hosting open-air arms bazaars, complicity with an establishedgovernment is not essential. At one end of the spectrum,weapons like the AK-47 are so plentiful that they can be had forthe price of a chicken in Uganda, the price of a goat in Kenya, andthe price of a bag of maize in Mozambique or Angola. At theother end, there is enough separated plutonium and highlyenriched uranium in the world to make thousands of nuclearweapons. Weapons-usable nuclear materials exist in over 130research laboratories operating in more than forty countriesaround the world, ranging from Ukraine to Ghana ...

America the Vulnerable
How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism. Copyright © by Stephen Flynn. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Excerpted from America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism by Stephen Flynn
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.